Backroads
by Acid Jazz Singer
Summary: The first 25 of a 50 word challenge, all about Jo  a little-lot-Jo/Zane thrown in for flavor. A little collection of my attempts to fight writers block, 50 word challenges on different characters for right now but will likely include other attempts later.


**First up, I'd like to appologize to everyone for my failure to update "Does Your Mother Know?" I was doing great for a while but, as is oft to happen to me, I got hit with a sizable bat with the words "Writer's Block: writen on it, repeatedly over the head.**

**Next, this is just an attempt at fighting such block and as such will only be updated as I overcome/continue to fight my evil nemisis. If anyone sees anything they would like to adopt as their own they are welcomed to it, but I would appretiate a heads up if you do :D. As always there is a liberal amount of Jo/Zane, though don't be surpirsed if you see soemthing else.**

**This was meant to be a fifty word challenge. As in, you take fifty random words and write a single sentence in responce. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to ramble, and as such I cheated a bit on, well over half of them opps...**

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**Jo: Part I**

**1. Message:  
**She blinked, once, twice, a third time, before looking up from her phone to an amused looking (if not still slightly hung over from their little "party" the night before) Grace. "What do you _mean_ I drunk dialed Zane last night?"

**2. Pack:  
**When she was seventeen she had come home, walked straight to her father, placed the forms before him with a pen and went to her room with a bag to nab the few belongings that actually meant something to her. By the time she had returned the release forms had been signed and her eldest brother was honking the horn from the car for her to come so he could take her to the recruiting office. She never looked back.

**3. Pattern:**  
Girl meets boy. Boy charms girl. Girl falls for boy. Boy leaves girl heartbroken and alone. She was starting to notice a pattern in her love life.

**4. Thought:  
**There was glitter everywhere, ground into the carpet, accidentally glued to the table, even clinging to the skin of those who had attempted to harness the small flecks of shining colors, and she knew with a growing sense of exasperation that she was going to have to clean all up on her own. As Carter, Fargo and Kevin presented the (still slightly damp) glittering and impractical ballet slippers to her, she could bring herself to care - it was the thought that counted, right?

**5. Dream:**  
She very rarely had actual _dreams_, not since she was young and her mother had been alive, instead she spent the night with the terrifying events of her life twisted into surreal representations playing before her over and over and over again.

**6. Dust:  
**She had grown up in a desert, a small town lost somewhere in the never ending sands of New Mexico and despite what people may think she absolutely had _loved_ it.

**7. Answer:  
**Eureka was a place full of questions. _Why does this do that? How can we make this better? Could doing this cure that? _It was odd that it was a simple, nearly _mundane_ question asked the world over, that haunted her at night. _Will you marry me?_ She knew the answer, why hadn't she said yes?

**8. Disengage:  
**The rift was growing, the distance between her and Eureka growing with every mistake and every accident, and soon enough she will step back and look at the facts and think: "I can't stay here anymore."

**9. Door:  
**She sat on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest as she tried desperately to stop her tears. On the other side of the bedroom door Zane had his hand poised above the knob, taking a deep breath before he grabbed the handle and letting himself in.

**10. Playing:  
**It had, somehow, turned into one massive game between the two of them. _Tag your it._ The chase, the lunge and then the _catch me if you can,_ before it began again.

**11. Names:  
**Books, magazines, websites, family lineage, friendly suggestions, even the _phonebook_ had been consulted in the mad search for a name for the little bundle of energy growing inside her. Even then they _still_ were completely at a loss when a beautiful baby girl, wrapped up tight in a little pink blanket, was presented to them for the first time in the delivery room.

**12. Complicated:  
**Zoe stood staring at her, expression hurt and a little angry as she clutched a familiar looking diamond ring in her hand. Jo looked up from the ring to her friend, sighing tiredly as she sat down on the couch. "How much do you know?"

**13. Old:  
**The Glock .45 was new from Jack, the necklace had been lent to her by Allison, Henry and Grace had presented her with a pair of sapphire earrings, and as for _old_...well she was certain a ring once belonging to his grandmother qualified.

**14. Night:  
**The air was cool and prickled her skin tauntingly as she sat on the hood of her car staring out over the mountain range as the murky red-orange moon began to peek up past the jagged knobby spine of the countryside, sighing slightly she allowed her head to loll to the side and rest on the shoulder of the man she was sharing the sight with.

**15. Paper:  
**After her new house had (_finally_) been built and she had settled in her father had sent a few boxes (a few _truck_ full of boxes rather, she was surprised how much he actually had of hers) of things she might need to make the place a little more "homey." In one, tucked away safely almost forgotten in an old photo album, she found a paper with her own childish writing from the first grade scribbling on and on about how her father was her hero.

**16. Shivering:  
**There had been an explosion, taking out her and her Unit and for a while all she heard was unidentifiable noise and all she felt was agonizing pain before blackness finally took over. When she had woken up she had been numb with shock and shivering with an unreal chill as her Unit Commander shouted to her to stay awake.

**17. Eventually:  
**Someday, she knew, she would stand at the crossroads and be forced to make a decision: stay in Eureka, or finally give in to the pressure of the higher ups and resign.

**18. Shoe:  
**It was ridiculous, really and truly ridiculous, that she couldn't find one single pair of heels that didn't make an ankle hostler for her gun impossible.

**19. Only:  
**Surrounded by the most intelligent, prestigious scientists in the world in a dress and heels she felt jarringly out of place, standing off to the side by herself, wishing that she had _someone _to talk to that wouldn't make her feel so totally singular in her existence.

**20. Quiet:  
**As the door opened with a squeal she turn on her heel and cast a glare towards his broad frame, one finger pressed to her lips in warning. Behind her, in the crib, their daughter twitched lightly in sleep before falling back into a deep slumber.

**21. Grief:  
**She hadn't really been given the chance to grieve for him properly, and - technically speaking - he wasn't dead, just someone who didn't love her any more.

**22. Hear:  
**"Did you hear what happened with Zane and Jo?"  
"What? Did they finally kill each other?"  
"Hardly! They ran off and got married over the weekend!"  
"Huh...so those rumors about her being pregnant are true..."  
"What?"

**23. Wet:  
**She tossed her head back, long locks clumping together clumsily from the downpour of freezing water, and looked towards Zane beside her accusingly. "Let me get this straight, you decided to cut open the fire hydrant to fight off the heat...with a _laser?_"

**24. Concentration:**  
Jack blinked, taking in the mountains of empty energy drinks and discarded bags of chips and the abandoned foils of countless candy bars and, in the center of it all, Jo and a various assortment of other local geeks furiously pounding away on game controllers as they stared at the large televisions screen completely unaware of him. The sheriff turned, closed the door, and left the bunker without a word. He really didn't want to get involved in a Call of Duty marathon, even if it was currently taking over his house.

**25. Whisper:  
**He had her cornered, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no choice but to answer his questions, and with a growing sense of defeat, she leaned forward, her mouth close to his ear, and whispered to him what _exactly_ they had been to each other.


End file.
